Love for the World
by Milli Moi
Summary: Love is a delicate things, it comes in many forms, lover, mother, grandmother, Patience Mount is filled with love but Eirian was once not so sure. WARNING- this story comes after Silver lining, and so has some spoilers in it but as it may be a while until I have finished Silver Lining I thought I'd put this up for you all


I was sixteen when my parents came true, it was 1978 and views on gay people were beginning to change for the better. My parents still were never my parents in public, only behind closed doors would Pats kiss the top of Mum's head and get flicked with the dishtowel. They may have shared pecks on the cheek, shared hugs, but to me, it had always been just Mum and Pats.  
At sixteen they had sat me down at told me what being gay meant, that they loved each other just as much as any man or woman could- perhaps more. They told me that they loved me that much too. But I didn't believe them. I'd always thought they were just good friends. After all,l I hugged my friends, I'd slept in the same bed as friends. I had never imagined they loved each other more.  
Mum and Pats met when Mum was a nurse in training. Pats was already a qualified nurse- very professional but not very warm. She had been a very lucky, very rich child, till the war started. She lost her Mother and her sister in a concentration camp. Her father didn't have much love for her- He was busy with work, busy sailing the world while Pats was in boarding school. Only one thing kept her going- nursing; until she met mum.  
Mum was a typical Pembrokeshire girl, worked in a little shop owned by her parents, helping out until she passed her eleven plus and got into grammar school. At sixteen years old, in 1953, she gained a place at the London Hospital as a trainee nurse. In her second year, she met Pats.  
That was the history I knew before I turned sixteen. I knew we didn't talk about what happened to Pats, I knew that my Gee wasn't a big fan of me. I knew that I had some relationship to Mr Mount because he would come over now and again and Pats would hide all the photographs of her and Mum, she would set up the spare bedroom with her things, she would dress in a skirt and blouse, not a pair of slacks and a checked shirt which was her usual.  
I didn't understand any of this until I was sixteen- then the pieces all fell together.  
I was shocked, scared and devastated. It wasn't illegal to be gay by then but I knew that intercourse with gay people was considered a horrible sin. I knew that gay wasn't something you chose to be- not unless you weren't right in the head. I remember sitting in the kitchen opposite mum and Pats, their hands clasped on top of the table. I knew something bad was coming. I thought it was about my chosen course of career. It was much worse. When they explained they were in love, that they were a couple, I was livid.  
'You are wrong! This isn't right, you will never be my mum.' Was aimed at Pat's. She flinched but her expression remained the same. Mum had opened her mouth to yell but was stopped by Pats. I ran, left the house, kept running and running until it became painful; until my lungs burned and my cheeks were sticky with tears. It was so wrong, so wrong. I  
Couldn't be theirs, my mother could not be a homosexual. I didn't even know women could be perverted in that way.  
I look at my feelings now, look at how I reacted to the situation, and I feel disgusted by myself. But I knew no better, the world had taught me this, taught me that being gay was as bad as being insane.  
It was several days after that, several days of them tiptoeing around me, that Pats came to speak to me.  
I remember slamming my bedroom door in her face, telling her I hated her. She didn't give up. The following morning, with them both away delivering babies, I found a letter at my place on the kitchen table.  
It contained Pats' cursive writing and I almost scrunched it up and threw it in the fire but something stopped me. Something made me read it, and I still remember the words.

 ** _Dear Eirian,  
I know you are angry with us, I know the hatred you feel right now for I felt it myself when I was thirteen. I remember being in the dormitory, changing into our nighties. Bras were not allowed in girls our age and yet some of us were more developed than others. I used to take in the shapes of the girls in the room, used to admire their breasts and consider them quite pretty.  
That evening they were talking about whichever boy was the current star- I can't remember now who that heartthrob was- and they passed around the magazine with his picture. I felt nothing for him. His face was angled and rough, he looked like what I knew I was supposed to like.  
By the time I was sixteen or seventeen I was certain- there was something wrong with me. I was broken in some way. I wasn't like the other girls; I wasn't interested in boys.  
I couldn't tell anyone. No one in my family could ever know- they would put me in an asylum, blame it on the camps, and forget I ever existed.  
I went straight into nursing, I had always wanted to make people better but it worked as a disguise too- many nurses never married. I knew I couldn't marry, even the thought of trying to pretend to love a man, I knew I couldn't- and the thought of trying to have children disgusted me.  
I thought I was alone in my absurd behaviour forever but then I was given a young shadow. Her name was Delia Busby. And she was the most beautiful woman I had ever set eyes on. Then she spoke and I swear my heart skipped. Her lulling welsh accent was perfect, totally perfect.  
That is until she started working, she was a good nurse, quick and on the ball with her treatments. I was very by the book and she asked why- a thing that nurses didn't do at the time. Also, a thing I kept getting pulled into Matron's office for. After the third or fourth time, I was pulled in I went straight to your mum, I dragged her into the corridor and was in the middle of telling her off when she kissed me. It was my first kiss and my best.  
As you know your mum and I will never be able to get married but that didn't matter to us. I bought her the ring that she wears around her neck after eighteen months together. It was our promise, our promise that we loved each other, that we cared for one another, that we would always be together. _**

**_She did not break that promise. I know what you believe- you believe you mother had a drunken night, that you were conceived illegitimately, and yes you were illegitimate but through force not through alcohol. Your mother was raped, yes that's right, molested by a cruel man who never had his time in jail. I hate myself every day for not being with her when it happened, I hate that she should never have been touched by a man. Although your mother can't speak about it at all- not even to me- she loves you; because with you we became the closest we could to a family._**

 ** _I almost risked my job, my reputation, even my freedom when you were born in order to protect your Mum. Luckily we were blessed with acceptance from your aunty Trixie. Trixie delivered you, placed you in my arms, and told me I was a Mum. I have tried since that day to be the best Mother I could be while keeping our family safe. I will never be as much your mum as Delia is but I have done my best. I have been your aunt, your Mum and Dad, I joined the forces for a while because it was so well paid- the best I could get at the time, then became Matron at Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor on the Maternity ward. I hated it but I did it, I wanted you to have opportunities, I wanted you to go to College and have the chance for a career, not just a job._**

 ** _I did all of this for you and your Mum because I love her and I love you. The two of you are my world, a world which isn't kind to people like us. Your middle name isn't just a word, it's what you are to us, it's what you can be for the world. The community of homosexual women- or, as much as I hate the word and how they came up with it, lesbians- needs people like you Eirian Patience Mireille, to fight our corner. We need you, your Mum needs you- to stop this hatred, to show the world you can be loved and see love. To create a better life in the future, for your generation of gay people, or for your children's generation._**

 ** _We love you Eirian, and we love each other, the world doesn't accept us but hopefully, you can._**

And that, Jack Dylan, is why it's ok. It's ok that I saw you kissing Dafydd, I know he's more than a friend to you. I know your only young and you are confused and worried. I might not be gay myself- I and your Dad adore each other- but I know your Gee and Gran will be happy to support you, as will I. They fought so hard for this, so hard for you Jack, so that you and whoever you go on to marry, can have the lives they want to have. I support gay people, and I love my Mum and Pats, just as they have always loved me.


End file.
